Can local election candidates fix our roads?

A wet winter and record numbers of potholes has made the condition of the roads across Sussex and Surrey a key issue for voters in local elections on 7 May.

The cost of fixing all the potholes on local roads in England and Wales would be an estimated £18.6bn, according to the industry body Asphalt Industry Alliance.

So what can be done?

Politics South East quizzed candidates from the five main parties about their plans to fix the roads.

Councils across the South East said they have seen a rise in the number of potholes.

West Sussex County Council said it repaired 3,701 potholes in February 2026, up from 2,533 in February 2025.

East Sussex County Council repaired 4,713 in the same month compared with 2,921 in February 2025.

Surrey County Council said it was fixing just over 1,500 each week.

All three councils said they had increased the number of teams working on repairing the roads.

A government rating system ranks all three councils as 'amber', which means they are patching up roads and have preventative measures in place but there is still room for improvement.

For those who have the frustrating experience of hitting a pothole, damage can also be costly.

Conor Clarke, from Fairwarp in East Sussex has spent more than £600 on car repairs after hitting two potholes within four months.

The 23-year-old mechanical engineer also lost a day of work as the damage left him unable to travel.

He said he wanted to see "more consistency with fixing the potholes themselves and how quickly the council fill them in".

"As motorists we pay a lot in taxes, we've got car tax, fuel duty, we pay a lot towards maintaining the roads, so I don't think this is an unreasonable request," he said.

It's not just potholes that are on the minds of those who use the roads.

Prof Scarlett McNally, who campaigns for safer cycling in Eastbourne and co-founded the Bespoke Cycle Group, is also pushing for change.

McNally said she wants "more people to be able to cycle, walk or get the bus rather than being dependent on cars".

"Eastbourne is only four miles across so it is easily cyclable but most people are too scared," she said.

"We need local government to put measures in to make it safer."

She also wants to see more 20mph speed limits put in place.

On Politics South East, guests from the five main parties told the BBC how their party would tackle fixing the roads.

Labour's Christine Bayliss said the government had pledged to fill an additional million potholes by the end of this parliament and were "well on the way to doing that".

She said the government had given millions of pounds to councils and that authorities needed to "hold contractors to account".

Conservative Marisa Heath said "it's about money at the end of the day. We need more money."

She said she wanted to see a change to the way national roads funding is calculated to better reflect heavy usage in the South East and also to tackle utility companies, as she said the roads were "being dug up all the time which ruins the integrity".

Liberal DemocratBridget Kendrick said her party believed in "investing in real resurfacing and having the strategic plan over the life of the council to prioritise road developments".

"We also want to invest in public transport," she added.

Reform UK'sHenry Smith said his party believes that "foreign aid money" that he said was being used to build roads in countries such as Guyana should be reallocated.

"Really what we should be doing is reprioritising that sort of investment, which the government has, into our local roads here in the South East."

The Green Party's Georgia Taylor said the Greens would invest in buses and bring road repair contracts back "in-house", using any savings for "systematically" resurfacing major roads".

She said they would also look at new technologies and sustainable drainage systems as part of a "really rigorous climate adaptation plan".

You can find a list of all the candidates standing on county council websites.

Politics South East is broadcast on BBC One at 10am on Sunday 3 May and you can find it on iPlayer.

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